


Something to Be Proud of

by the_original_n_chan



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Baaaaaaby Titan Shifters, Bertolt Needs All the Hugs, Gen, Pre-series backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 14:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1229467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_original_n_chan/pseuds/the_original_n_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bertolt struggles with his first change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something to Be Proud of

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Bertolt's backstory as revealed through the end of the Clash of the Titans arc.
> 
> Disclaimer: All rights reserved to the original creators. No copyright infringement is intended.

Bertolt swallowed anxiously, keeping his eyes down, avoiding the measuring stares of the half circle of men and women standing a safe distance away from him. The researchers, the strategic planners, the small crowd of their settlement’s strongest fighters, and in the very back even the president herself and the other members of the Council—all the people who were overseeing the preparations for their last, most desperate war.

Who were looking for him to succeed—to fulfill whatever potential they’d thought he had. Or to judge him if he failed.

He _had_ to do it this time. He couldn’t mess it up again. Twice already he’d tried to assume his Titan form, and both times it had been... _wrong_. Just a head and neck, a shoulder, and one long, scrawny arm the first time, all skinless and mangled, and the second time, not even that, just a hunk of torso, a huge collapsed heap of twisted-up muscles stuck through with some bones. Or so he’d been told, anyway—he’d been unconscious for most of a day after that last one, and woken up disoriented, twitching and shaking, tangled in his sweat-soaked sheets. The thought of forcing himself into the change yet again terrified him. What might go wrong this time?

_You’re too worried about the whole thing_ , Reiner had told him after the last disaster. _You just gotta relax and let it happen!_

As if Reiner really knew anything, considering he hadn’t even attempted his own first change yet. But Bertolt had to admit that he appreciated Reiner’s efforts at cheering him on, even if they were sometimes a bit too enthusiastic for comfort. 

Glancing up from the brown, winter-flattened grass, he spotted Reiner at the edge of the crowd and felt a flicker of reassurance at his friend’s presence. Then he looked farther off to the side, toward Annie, who was already transformed, squatting with her forearms resting easily on her thighs, head cocked as she stared unblinkingly back at him. Annie’s Titan form was amazing. She was big and strong and graceful, perfectly controlled, so well-formed that she almost looked like a human being—well, a really enormous human being, of course. He wished with all his heart that he could have a Titan form even half as awesome as hers.

If he was going to do it at all, he’d better do it now—now, quickly, before his nerves gave out. Bertolt took a deep breath. Then he set the small knife’s edge against the heel of his palm and drew it swiftly across the skin, catching his lip in his teeth at the familiar burning sting of pain, the sight of the line of blood welling up. He squeezed his eyes shut tight.

Oh please, let him be able to do it this time! A real Titan form, a whole one, a strong one—a warrior’s! A form that would let him do what he had to do, what he had no choice but to do, in this fight for which he’d already had to give up so much....

The memory of Reiner’s intent, excited face flashed through his mind, then Annie, inscrutable but watchful, the arc of observers with their critical eyes, the weight of their coming judgment, and then Reiner once more—

_Please_ let him not disappoint them all again....

And the change took him. Flare-into-explosion, the fire-and-lightning of his cut a thousand-fold, ripping, tearing, crackling through every nerve, up his spine with such a shock that it felt like it was being torn right out of him, and at the same time that soaring, swooping instant of flying-falling before everything closed in around him, _into him_ , through him, sealing him in place.

The jolted world steadied, then settled, and the pain receded. He had a shape, he realized muzzily; he was standing. Good...? Slowly, hesitantly, he opened his eyes.

Sky. Pale gray clouds stretching on and on until they bent toward the far-off peaks of the northern horizon. It was as if he was standing on some high precipice, looking outward, the rest of the world fallen away behind him. Disoriented, he tried to get his bearings. He shifted his gaze, turned his head slightly—it felt heavy, the movement slow, as if he’d been drugged. His mind felt reasonably clear, though, if maybe a bit dazed and confused.

There—there were the first ridges of the nearer range, climbing up toward the higher mountains beyond, but they looked...different. _Strange_. He couldn’t quite tell what was wrong, it was too subtle, but something in the angles of the slopes, the outlines of peak rising against peak was unfamiliar. And with a sudden, sinking shock he wondered if he’d failed again after all, and this was just some fevered dream fugue as he lay unconscious in a medical ward somewhere, because _everything_ was different, the whole landscape had changed. Where were the scattered trees that had dotted the valley floor, the low, rolling hills they’d walked through to get to the field, the small, sunken stream that had trickled along its edge? The place where he stood now was narrower, flatter, with just a few small bushes. And where had the rest of the people gone? Because there was only one person standing there, head craned way, way back to look up at him, except weirdly she was naked and...oh.

That was Annie. _In her Titan form_.

Those weren’t bushes. _They were the trees_. And the tiny, dark shapes retreating in a chaotic swarm, like disturbed ants....

Human beings? 

A sudden panic struck him. _Ahh!_ , he tried to cry out— _help, I don’t know what happened, I don’t know what to do!_ —and a tremendous groaning roar boomed out across the valley, rolling on and on, echoing back from the mountainsides. Startled, he rocked backward, and then he was off balance, tilting— _no, too high, don’t fall, don’t fall!_ He flailed his arms, or tried to—like moving through water—somehow managed to take a clumsy half step back and restabilized himself. He shuddered, gasping in equal parts relief and fear, and felt that shudder ripple through an immensity he could barely even fathom.

Glancing down nervously, he tried to judge his height, and was distracted by the actual sight of his Titan body. Skinless, like before, red and raw-looking, visible muscles shifting as he tensed, _ugh, gross_. Wisps of smoke or vapor rose from him in places. He looked back at Annie and realized with a shock that she didn’t even come up to his _knees_. As he struggled to calculate just how big he was based on her size, she crouched, put one hand to her neck, then rose and strode toward him. When she got close enough, she leaped high, sank her hardened nails into his leg, and started climbing.

It didn’t hurt, really, just a pricking like gentle cat’s claws. When she got to about his waist, he shook off his paralysis enough to offer his hand as a step and help raise her the rest of the way. His arms seemed small compared to the rest of him, but he lifted her easily enough until she was perched on his shoulder. Annie looked at her hand and grumbled a little; he thought he could just make out the steam of regeneration, and through it a trace of fading redness. The medical reports had said that his partial transformations had run extremely hot; maybe he was still hot enough to burn skin? She shrugged the damage off and looked at him instead, almost but still not quite eye level, and the sheer unreality of it, a fourteen-meter Titan sitting on his shoulder like a pet squirrel, stunned him all over again.

“ _AAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRR_ ,” he moaned, and wordless though the cry was, the earth-shaking loudness of it perfectly summed up the depths of his shock, confusion, and dismay.

“ _BERTL!_ ” The answering yell was faint but clear and ringing. “ _What’re you groaning about? Your Titan form’s FANTASTIC!_ ” 

Startled, he peered more closely at Annie and could just make out the minuscule figure riding the slope where her neck met her shoulder—Reiner, one hand clenched on her hair, scarf askew and threatening to slip off him entirely as he recklessly leaned further out. It was hard for Bertolt to make out such tiny details, but from the tone of Reiner’s voice he could easily imagine the fierce, eager grin on his friend’s face. 

“ _I bet you’re bigger’n the Walls! You’ll just knock ’em right over!_ ” 

And Reiner’s unmistakable pride in him stirred a glimmer of relief, of hope. That could be true, couldn’t it? That maybe, weird and ugly as it was, his Titan form could be...okay? Even...a good one? Annie smacked him on the shoulder as if to say, _Stop being an idiot_ , and even that was comforting, in its own way. 

Bertolt heaved a rumbling sigh and let himself believe. 


End file.
